by Fiona Faris
“I’ve nocht against it, though it might hae been mair decent had ye waited until Lady Isbeil was cauld in her grave.” He leaned forward and laced his fingers together over the table. “She is a comely lass, by all accounts, and a bonny wee slip of a thing.” He unlaced his fingers and stabbed at the table again. “But that’s all she must be, hear ye – a bit tickle for yer cock.”
Eoin fixed Clanranald’s eye with a steely look.
“I love her,” he said simply.
Clanranald barked out a laugh, then curled his nose in a contemptuous sneer.
“Love!” He scoffed. “Love never built alliances. Love never strengthened the arm that wields the sword against our enemies.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Keep the lassie, by all means; just keep her quietly, keep her privily. Wear your wife in public and your wee cunt in the bedchamber.”
Eoin bridled at the slur against his Catriona. His nostrils flared, and his face darkened. Clanranald looked on at his reaction with a kind of detached curiosity, his bushy eyebrows raised.
“I don’t have a wife,” Eoin reminded him.
“No.” The look on the Clanranald’s face was unwavering, challenging. “And I’m sure your wee lassie has been a great comfort to you. A man needs… release, if his brain is not to overheat. And a cunt from the clachan is as good as a cunt for the Royal Court when it comes to a bit of relief. But we spoke of diplomacy…” Clanranald leaned forward across the table and all but clutched at the collar of Eoin’s doublet to make his meaning clear. “I have spoken to Badenoch about a marriage of the two branches of our clan through you and your cousin, Mairi. It will strengthen us for the future. The wedding will take place at the end of next summer, following a decent period of mourning.”
“I will not marry her,” Eoin replied in a low steady voice, meeting his father’s hard, unwavering look with his own.
The stared each other out for several seconds, then Clanranald slammed his palm down on the table with a force that toppled the whiskey flask and made the water jug jump.
“You will defy me in this?” he bellowed.
Eoin’s look did not flinch.
“I will,” he replied quietly but firmly.
Clanranald shot to his feet, sending his chair screeching across the oak floor, his rapier drawn, its tip a hair’s breadth from Eoin’s throat.
Footsteps clattered up the stair-turret.
“I will not draw my sword against the Clanranald,” Eoin said, still staring his father down. “But neither will I submit to his tyranny. I would sooner die than do either”
Clanranald’s men-at-arms fanned into the room, their weapons drawn. Behind them, Tamhas stood framed in the doorway, an ax in one hand and a broadsword in the other, eyeing the men-at-arms as if deciding which one he should dispatch first.
The father stood, and the son sat, stalemated. Clanranald loomed over the smaller Eoin, seething with fury. Eoin faced down Clanranald’s menace with his jaw set. The tip of the rapier trembled against Eoin’s throat. Eoin ran the tip of his tongue over his dry upper lip, but he did not flinch.
At last, Clanranald swore and cast his sword across the floor. It came to rest against the end wall on which the clan trophies were displayed.
“You have three days to quit Castle Tioram and the lands of Muideart. I renounce you and your heirs, especially any bastards you get by your wee whore. From this moment on, you are dead to me. May the Lord have mercy on you, for I will not!”
He stormed from the hall, shoving his way through the line of his retainers.
Tamhas hastily stepped aside from the turret door to let him past.
The men-at-arms collected themselves and scurried off after their Lord.
Minutes later, the Clanranald was spurring his horse across the sandbar through the incoming tide, his men-at-arms a ragged chevron trailing in his wake.
Epilogue
That evening, Eoin, wee Donald, Catriona, Tamhas, and Peigi sat at the kitchen table and feasted like royalty on the castle provisions. Eoin had decided that they would quit Castle Tioram the very next morning. Peigi had begged Eoin to dine as he had always done in the hall, but Eoin had pointed out that, since he was no longer the Lord of Muideart, heir to Clanranald, he had no claim to the castle’s noble comforts – nor, indeed, to the allegiance of either Peigi or Tamhas.
“In fact, I am duty-bound to release the pair of you from your service. You are free to go, Tamhas, Peigi. I am sure there will be a place for you in my father’s household or in that of one of his loyal lieutenants.”
Tamhas puffed out his lips and considered his outstretched feet for a moment before speaking.
“I believe that I will follow where my master and…” He nodded to Catriona. “… my mistress go,” he declared.
Eoin grinned at him with fondness, then turned to Peigi.
“And what about you, Mistress Campbell?”
Peigi stood and went around the table to link her arm through Tamhas’.
“And I will go with my man.”
Catriona winked at her.
“And how do you think you will be liking Glaschu, Peigi?”
“Och, I shall like it as much as it likes me,” she replied cryptically. “And I am thinking I will like it well enough; it is, after all, a Highland town, with all the Highlanders that have gone there lately to make their fortunes.”
“Will we make our fortunes, Father?” Donald piped up, excited at the prospect of such a radical change in their lives and the promise of adventures.
“That may all depend on Mr. Ingram,” Eoin replied. “Either we will be fighting savages in the forests of Virginia, or else we shall be pirates on the Spanish Main.” He reached across and ruffled his son’s hair. “It will be either a flintlock musket or a cutlass for you, my lad!”
Donald’s eyes swam with delirium; he was so happy.
* * *
“And what of you, Catriona, my love?” Eoin teased her as they lay in each other’s arms in their bed that night. “Will you be going with your man?”
Catriona screwed up her eyes and considered the proposition.
“Och… I am thinking that, maybe, I will,” she reckoned. “But only to the ends of the Earth,” she added. “No further!”
Eoin laughed.
“But you know I have no claim on you either, my love, any more than I have on Peigi or Tamhas. I am no longer the master, and you are no longer the servant. We are both tinkers cast out on the road and obliged to make a living as best we can.”
Catriona slapped him playfully on the shoulder.
“‘Tinkers’, indeed!” she protested. “You speak for yourself, Eoin MacDonald! I’m a decent maid from the clachan, not a dirty-filthy tinker like yourself.”
She suddenly realized that she was happy. She was no longer a daughter of Ath Tharracail, nor was she ‘gentry’. But neither did she any longer feel herself adrift between the two worlds. She had found her place, and it was beside her man.
Catriona and Eoin lay side by side and contemplated their future life together. Who knew what fate would lie in store for them. They had been cast loose from their respective destinies, she as a daughter of the clachan, he as the son of Clanranald, and who could tell on what shore they would wash up.
But there was one thing of which Catriona could be sure: it would be their hand that was on the tiller.
Suddenly, Eoin threw back the covers and leaped naked from the bed. Catriona fell into a fit of giggles as he capered about the room, making a show of looking for something, his cock and balls bouncing like a sporran in his lap.
“What on Earth are you doing now, my love?”
She shook her head with a look of bemusement on her face.
“Pen and paper, pen and paper,” he repeated. “I have letters to write.”
Then he glanced over at her and grinned.
“We are for the Americas, lass!”
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Glossary
A
Ach – oh
Afore – in front of/before
Ay – yes
Aye – yes/always/still
* * *
B
Bairn – child
Bannock – flat quick bread
Bauchle – useless/worn out/worthless
Baudrons – cat
Baulks – boundaries
Ben – inside
Besom – broom
Brae – hill
Breeks – breeches
Brose – uncooked form of porridge/oatmeal
Byre – cow shed
* * *
C
Canna/cannae – can’t
Canny – careful/cautious/hesistant
Cauld – cold
Ceilidh – a party with music, dancing, and often storytelling
Chiel – lad/young man/fellow
Clachan – village
Clarty – dirty
Clout – cloth/to patch/clothes
Cogie – insult/unwashed
Cooried – crouched/cowered/stooped
Craic – fun/entertainment/gossip
Croft – farm
Cuddy – donkey
Cutty – short/stubby
* * *
D
Dae – do
Daffin – larking
Dawm – daydream/reverie
Dinna – don’t
Disna – doesn’t
Doon – down
Dowp – buttocks
Doxy – mistress/floozie
Dreesome – fear/fearsome
* * *
F
Forby – besides
* * *
G
Gallant – a noble
Get – child/called
Guid – good
* * *
H
Hae – have
Handfasting – commitment ceremony
Hap/happed – cover-ed/wrap-ped
Haud – hold
Hochmagandy – sex
Hurdies – buttocks or loins
* * *
I
Inby – inside/enclosed
* * *
K
Kirk – church
Kist – chest
Know – a small hill/a knoll
* * *
L
Lang – long/for long
Lave – the others/of persons or things/one among many
Loch – lake
* * *
M
Mair – more
Maister –master/mister
Mhaighstir – master/teacher/lord
Mither – mother
Mucking – remove manure or dirt
* * *
N
Nae – no
Ne’re – never
Nocht – nothing/nought
* * *
O
O’ – of
Och – Oh
* * *
P
Papish – disparaging
* * *
Q
Quaich – drinking cup
* * *
R
Randi – lawless
Ribbands – decorative ribbons
Roan – a horse or cow with a coat of one main color interposed with hairs of another color
* * *
S
Sae – so
Sair – sore/to serve/sairly (sorely)
Sark – shirt
Shiel/ing – temporary rough hut
Shift – Tartan dress
Shod – shoed/equipped
Sic – such
Sillar – silver
Siller – money/silver
Skelp – slap/to spank
Skyte – squirt
Sleekit – crafty/deceitful
Spindleshank – long slender leg
Spurtle – wooden kitchen tool
Steading – a farmstead
Stook – pile/bundle (namely straw)
Stour – Dust
* * *
T
Tae – to
Tocher – (to give a) dowry
Tousie – disordered/disheveled/rough/shaggy
Traik – long/tiring walk
Trencher – a type of tableware: a flat, round of bread used as a plate
Trews – Tartan trousers
Tup – a ram
* * *
U
Uisge beatha – whiskey
* * *
W
Wha – who
Wheesht – be quiet
Wi’ – with
tTink – a scruffy and smell person
Winna – won’t
* * *
Y
Ye – you
Yer – your